We Could Be Heroes
by crematosis
Summary: Tony needs an idea for what to wear to Pepper's charity ball. No one is going to be thrilled with the result, but that's what makes it fun.


Stephen glanced up from his spell book as his phone went off.

It was a text from Tony, urgently requesting his presence at the Tower.

Since it wasn't an official Avengers summons, it was something only Tony considered an emergency. And Tony considered far too many things emergencies. Like running out of coffee.

Still, there was always the chance that Tony had gotten kidnapped and Stephen had been the only one he managed to contact. He supposed he owed it to his boyfriend to at least check it out.

Stephen transported himself over to the Tower and headed straight up to Tony's room. There, found Tony sitting on the floor, surrounded by a pile of garish sweaters, neon pants, and enough hats to fill an entire Halloween store.

He raised an eyebrow. "What's the occasion?"

"So I might have forgotten about Pepper's charity ball tonight," Tony said sheepishly. "No idea what I'm going to wear."

"You have plenty of suits to choose from. I've seen your wardrobe."

"And I've seen yours," Tony shot back. "But no. It's a themed ball. Heroes and sidekicks. Pepper's idea. Something something about community outreach, leadership, recognizing people in the community who make a difference. We're not allowed to dress up as ourselves." He heaved a sigh. "Believe me, I tried."

"We could go as each other."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Cap and Bucky are going as each other. And they're being disgustingly lovey-dovey about it. Cap's been gushing about how proud he is to see Bucky carrying his shield all morning. There's no way in fuck I'm going to be caught dead cooing about how you look in the armor."

"Hence the mess," Stephen said, staring at the pile of clothes.

"Hence the mess," Tony agreed. He tossed a pair of lime green shorts against the wall. "This is fucking stupid. There's no way I can come up with a hero outfit by tonight." He looked up at Stephen plaintively. "You used to be a doctor. You can diagnose me with some terrible, contagious disease that'll get me out of the ball, right?"

"I was a surgeon," Stephen said. "And no, I'm not doing anything to get you out of this. You're a big boy. You can face Pepper's wrath on your own."

Tony stuck out his tongue. "She has you down as my date so you're in this mess with me."

Stephen shrugged. "I'm sure the whole point of this theme is to prove that 'hero' is a term that encompasses far more than superheroes like the Avengers. Police officers, first responders, soldiers. I probably have some of my old scrubs laying around. We could go with that."

Now that he thought about it, Sam and Rhodey had been spending an awful lot of time discussing the merits of firefighters.

Tony huffed. "That's boring and also exactly what Pepper wants. So there's no way we're doing that."

Stephen sighed heavily. "We could choose a superhero and sidekick from the comics?"

"Hell no. You know how we are. The two of us will be arguing over which of us gets to be Batman and which gets to be Robin."

Tony did have a point. Both of them had far too much ego to step into the role of the sidekick. And they were terrible at compromising. It made their sex life interesting, but made the rest of their relationship a challenge.

"I don't know what to tell you, then. We each choose one of our coworkers? There's nothing that says we have to actually be a hero and a sidekick, is there? Because I don't think any of us actually have sidekicks."

"Well, technically no. Unless you count Bucky as Cap's sidekick and …oh! Actually, that's a fucking amazing idea."

Tony jumped to his feet and snatched his phone off his desk.

"Rhodey! Yes, of course I'm going to the ball. Paper would kill me if I ditched it. Just a head's up. Don't be alarmed if your War Machine, I mean, 'Iron Patriot', armor goes missing for the night. I'm thinking about dressing up as my favorite sidekick for the ball."

Rhodey's indignant squawk could be heard all the way from where Stephen was standing.

"Thanks, sugarbear," Tony said cheerfully. "Don't know what I'd do without you."

Stephen smirked. "He's not going to be thrilled."

"That's the fun of it. Rhodey's going to be all bent out of shape, Pepper is going to be pissed. With any luck, the two of us never have to go to a boring charity ball ever again. You're a genius, Stephen."

"I try," Stephen said modestly.


End file.
